Symbotic

Symbotic was founded by Richard B. (Rick) Cohen, who had long run C&S Wholesale Grocers, a large U.S. grocery wholesaler, helping grow its sales from $14 million in 1974 to $27 billion in 2018. In the early 2000s he needed to automate his own warehouses but could find no end-to-end solution offering the efficiency, accuracy, speed and adaptability required, so he invested in a small company that would later become Symbotic. According to the company’s annual report, Cohen started Symbotic in 2006; its website gives the founding year as 2007.⁠[1][1][2][2][2][2]

The pre-listing holding entity, Warehouse Technologies LLC, was formed in New Hampshire in December 2006 to invest in companies developing new warehouse technologies; the operating subsidiary Symbotic LLC was formerly known as CasePick Systems, LLC. The company’s name stands for a “Symphony of robotics,” likening its system to many technologies precisely orchestrated into one whole.⁠[1][3][2][2]

Symbotic has worked with Walmart since 2015, signed its first Master Automation Agreement with the retailer in 2017 and amended and restated it in January 2019. Rollin Ford, who spent 33 years at Walmart as chief logistics officer, chief information officer and chief administrative officer, joined the advisory board of Symbotic’s predecessor in August 2016 after retiring that year, and has been a director since June 2022.⁠[3][4][4][4][4][4]

On April 30, 2021, the two companies amended the agreement to cover deploying Symbotic systems in 25 of Walmart’s 42 regional distribution centers, divided under the agreement into 80 “modules”; implementation began in 2021. The same day, Symbotic’s predecessor issued Walmart warrants to acquire up to 714,022 Class A units, of which 446,741 units, equal to 6.5% of outstanding and issuable units, vested on signing, while the remaining 267,281 units, up to 3.5%, could vest depending on Walmart’s further investment and other conditions.⁠[1][3][3][3][3]

On December 12, 2021, SVF Investment Corp. 3, a SoftBank-affiliated special purpose acquisition company, signed a merger agreement with Warehouse Technologies and Symbotic Holdings. Under the agreement, the founder and certain family members, affiliated entities and trusts would receive Class V-3 common stock carrying three votes per share. The same day, investors including Walmart subscribed for 20.5 million Class A shares at $10 per share, or $205 million in total, of which Walmart took 15 million shares.⁠[5][5][5][5][6][7]

That day Walmart also signed an Investment and Subscription Agreement with Warehouse Technologies and then exercised warrants to buy 267,281 units, 3.7% of units outstanding after the exercise, for $103,980,327, receiving a new warrant to buy 258,972 units at $614.34 per unit. The agreement gave Walmart the right to designate an employee to attend board meetings as a nonvoting observer and subjected Walmart to a standstill restricting it from acquiring additional voting securities, proposing a merger or tender offer, and similar actions.⁠[7][7][7][7][7][7][7]

On May 20, 2022, the companies again amended and restated the Master Automation Agreement, expanding it to all 42 Walmart regional distribution centers and 188 modules (20 of them contingent), adding about $6.1 billion to Symbotic’s backlog; under the agreement, implementation of all systems is to begin by the end of 2029, and the initial term runs to May 2034. For each system Walmart pays the cost of implementation (materials and labor) plus a specified net profit, software maintenance and support for at least 15 years, and spare parts; Symbotic agreed to restrictions on selling or licensing its products and services to a specified company and its affiliates, and must notify Walmart if it explores transactions that could lead to a change of control or the sale of 25% or more of its voting power.⁠[1][1][3][3][3][3][3][3][3]

The merger closed on June 7, 2022, and SVF Investment Corp. 3 changed its name to Symbotic Inc., adopting an umbrella partnership (Up-C) structure in which legacy Warehouse holders kept their interests through units of Symbotic Holdings. On June 8 the Class A common stock began trading on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol SYM. After the transaction, former Warehouse unitholders owned about 90.4% of Symbotic’s common stock, SPAC public shareholders about 0.9%, the sponsor and related parties about 4.8%, and PIPE investors about 3.9%.⁠[3][7][3][6][6][6][6][6]

In the merger, Walmart’s 714,022 Warehouse units were converted into 43,756,942 Symbotic Holdings units (OpCo units) and an equal number of Class V-1 common shares with no economic rights, and its earlier warrant was exchanged for a new warrant to acquire 15,870,411 OpCo units at $10 per unit.⁠[7][7][7]

In fiscal 2022, ended September 24, 2022, Symbotic’s revenue was $593 million, up 136% from $252 million the previous year, with a net loss of $139 million; Walmart accounted for about 94% of revenue. At fiscal year-end backlog stood at about $11.1 billion, most of it from the Walmart agreement; other customers included Albertsons, Target, Giant Tiger, UNFI and affiliate C&S Wholesale Grocers. The company then had about 1,120 full-time employees.⁠[1][1][1][1][1][1][1]

On November 19, 2022, the board appointed Richard Cohen, then chairman and president, as chief executive officer with no additional compensation; chief executive Michael J. Loparco resigned as CEO and director the same day, and the company said his departure was not the result of any disagreement over its operations, policies or practices.⁠[8][8][8][8]

On July 23, 2023, Symbotic signed a framework agreement with SoftBank to form GreenBox Systems, a warehouse-as-a-service joint venture owned 35% by Symbotic Holdings and 65% by SoftBank’s Sunlight Investment, with capital commitments of about $1.7 billion and $3.2 billion respectively. GreenBox committed to spend at least $7.5 billion over six years on Symbotic systems; if the company has no named successor chief executive when Rick Cohen leaves, GreenBox may cut its remaining purchase commitment by 50%.⁠[9][9][9][9][9]

At the same time, two trusts associated with Cohen agreed to sell 17,825,312 Class A shares to SoftBank for a total of $500 million, and SoftBank and its controlled affiliates became subject to a standstill lasting until the fourth anniversary of the agreement or until their holdings fall below 5% of fully diluted equity. GreenBox began doing business as Exol in December 2025.⁠[9][9][4]

In fiscal 2023, ended September 30, 2023, Symbotic’s revenue was $1.177 billion, with a net loss of $208 million. On October 2, 2023, the company announced that chief financial officer Thomas Ernst would retire on December 15 and be succeeded by Carol Hibbard, previously senior vice president and controller of Boeing.⁠[10][10][11][11][11]

On December 12, 2023, Walmart exercised its warrant in full at $10 per unit, receiving 15,870,411 newly issued OpCo units and an equal number of Class V-1 shares. Walmart’s holdings did not change again through August 2026.⁠[12][13]

On February 26, 2024, Symbotic completed an underwritten offering of 10 million Class A shares, 5 million issued by the company and 5 million sold by selling securityholders, netting the company about $197 million; on March 8 the underwriters fully exercised their option to buy 1.5 million more shares, bringing the company’s total net proceeds from the offering to about $256 million.⁠[14][14][14][15][15]

Symbotic’s distribution-center solution consists of inbound de-palletizing cells using robotic arms, scan tunnels, lifts, a storage structure, autonomous mobile robots (Bots) that handle cases and totes, outbound palletizing cells using robotic arms, multiple vision systems, and software that coordinates all the hardware. The system can break full pallets into cases for storage and then build multi-product outbound pallets to store requirements; its BreakPack system automatically opens cases, handles individual items and packs them into multi-product totes.⁠[3][3][3]

According to the company, its case- and tote-handling robots travel at more than 20 miles per hour, some up to 25 miles per hour, can move anywhere in a two-dimensional plane and reach multiple levels of the storage structure; the company says it ships more than eight million cases a day. Its case-handling distribution-center system can approach “lights-out” operation.⁠[3][3][3][3][3]

Symbotic uses an Up-C structure with three classes of common stock: Class A and Class V-1 carry one vote per share and Class V-3 three votes per share; Class V-3 shares convert to Class V-1 in certain situations and automatically on June 7, 2029. As of September 27, 2025, Richard B. Cohen and certain family members, affiliated entities and trusts together held Class V-3 stock and 69.3% of the voting power, enough to control all matters submitted to shareholders. As of January 6, 2026, Symbotic had about 123 million Class A, 72.96 million Class V-1 and 404 million Class V-3 shares outstanding; according to the proxy statement’s principal-shareholder table, SoftBank Group held 7.6% of total common stock.⁠[3][3][3][4][4]

Symbotic: Official website: https://www.symbotic.com/ (opens in a new window).⁠[16]

X: Public account: https://x.com/symbotictweet (opens in a new window)⁠[17]

LinkedInLinkedInLinkedIn is a social networking platform for professionals. It was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman and others, launched in 2003, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011; after Microsoft acquired it for approximately $26.2 billion in 2016, it became a wholly owned Microsoft subsidiary. Its revenue comes from membership subscriptions, advertising, and recruitment solutions.Open the full entry: Public profile: https://www.linkedin.com/company/symbotic/ (opens in a new window)⁠[17]